OKPOLICY.ORG
“[Governor] Fallin no doubt will continue to argue Oklahoma won’t be able to afford Medicaid expansion once federal support drops to 90 percent. The state, after all, is staring at a $1 billion hole next year. Of course, this is a budget crisis of state leadership’s own making – the result of imprudent income tax cuts that primarily benefited the state’s wealthiest. It is made worse by the decline in oil and gas revenues – again, wholly predictable, given that the industry is historically boom-bust. What state budget writers can’t or refuse to see is that by improving health outcomes, Oklahoma can expect a more productive, taxpaying workforce – fewer uninsured who all too often end up tapping taxpayer-financed services when manageable health problems, ignored because of costs, become cataclysmic.”
-Journal Record columnist Arnold Hamilton (Source)
